Article September 24, 2012 Issue

Becoming Jesus' kind of Christian

Allison Phinney

The poem about ancient Christians that introduces this week’s theme, surely speaks to some of our deepest feelings. In these times, who wouldn’t yearn for more of the simple trust and closeness to God those earliest Christians had in their everyday life with Christ Jesus?

Drawn by the astonishing good Jesus was accomplishing, his disciples were willing to walk away from nearly everything they’d previously taken to be their life. Instead of conforming to the society around them, they were devoting themselves to one thing above all. They yearned to grasp and understand more and more of the realness of Spirit, God, and His kingdom, which Jesus was teaching them.

For the first time in human history, the full nature and meaning of God was being shown. This God isn’t helpless and boxed in by laws of a material creation, supposedly of His own making. His infinite Spirit pervades the whole of being now, and always has and always will embrace man and creation in divine Love. 